


it's the love of the chase that created the ride

by dogcafe



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: ????!phil, Angst, Fluff, M/M, mostly fluff there's angst in there somewhere though, writer!Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 12:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8490286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogcafe/pseuds/dogcafe
Summary: The next time Dan sees Phil, the novelty has yet to wear off and Dan finds himself this time on the swing set. He can't adjust his body to where he's holding on right without dropping his things from his lap, and he feels like his hands are starting to turn into the rust from the chains where he's gripping so deathly hard.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlightmusings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlightmusings/gifts).



> finally decided to upload this!! this was written for char's birthday this year :--)  
> you can find the fic tag [here](http://citydan.tumblr.com/tagged/its-the-love-of-the-chase-that-created-the-ride) and the playlist [here](https://play.spotify.com/user/moongloss/playlist/0yelJWjJRmo7wsiV640cwI) (wip)  
>   
> i hope u enjoy!!

_(ONE: When I first met you, I wasn't really unhappy more so than I was restless and unsatisfied with what I had and who I knew and then you came and I'm an adult with bills to pay and groceries to buy but goddamn it you make me feel like a kid again.)_

2:45 PM

  


It's during a waxing crescent moon that Dan decides there's just nothing quite like a full moon. 

  


Dan sits on the top of a mustard yellow slide, cross-legged, his knees propped against the sides of the opening with no intentions of going anywhere soon. A blue moleskine sits in his lap, open to the next blank page and the print lines on somewhat of an ivory white background are partially obscured under the shadows cast by his own figure.  

  


Dan doesn't know how long he's been here, only that the sides of his hands are going numb with the chill of the air from being outside so long to where he can't remember being able to see the letters on the page in front of him anymore. The streetlights aren't quite working anymore, so an intermittent sparkle is all his company tonight. He has maybe a crumpled ten dollar bill in his back pocket and the pencils in his other pocket, a rubber eraser, his phone, and the pen stuck in the gutter of his notebook. The cap is more than half bitten, and sometimes the ink clots on the side of his pen in a way that reminds him of the way his stomach turns before he gets on a rollercoaster, the way his hands get clammy before a presentation and the subconscious crack in his voice every time before he start speaking. He probably should have thought this over more.

  


Tomorrow, he'll regret staying up so late, exhaustion buried deep into the bags under his eyes he hasn't seen himself without for months and laced into the edges of his handwriting with a telltale spike that somewhat resembles the way one's heart makes itself known on the lines of an EKG monitor. 

  


(He thinks that if this is the price to keep himself from flatlining, it's not as bad as it could be.)

  


"What are you doing?" 

  


Dan's suddenly glad for the crescent moon, and the way the shadows hide the way he jumps at the sound of another voice. He says nothing after deciding he can't, instead opting for looking down at the figure at the foot of the slide, their hand somewhat holding on to the side as they peer upwards in all their attempts to figure Dan out. 

  


"Can I come up there?" they ask, like if they haven't noticed Dan's lack of response, so Dan only nods and watches as they latch on to the thing that's not quite a ladder in the way the bars aren't even, and pulls themselves up to Dan's level. There's a little stretch resembling a bridge next to Dan, and they drape their legs over the side to sit on the edge besides him. When they've situated themselves, the stranger finally looks at Dan properly, and between the metronome flickering of the streetlights that remind Dan of the ringing in his ears and the shadows cast on their face, all Dan thinks he knows is a blue that looks like the color people say the sky should be or the aesthetic of gender roles and the cap of his pen when it was newly made.

  


"I'm Phil," the stranger says, like he was invited, like he knows Dan, but Dan nods all the same. 

  


"I'm Dan."

  


Dan can't really tell, but he can just feel the way Phil smiles. "So he does speak."

  


"Excuse me for not spilling my life's secrets to you already. You're not even supposed to be here."

  


Phil tilts his head back a little, letting his eyes slide to the side in observance of Dan, letting the moonlight just kiss the black of his hair. It's a black darker than the shadows Dan's grown to know so intimately tonight, and the only thought that crosses his mind is that he'd love to write lines with the ink that knows Phil's hair. 

  


"Well that's the better part isn't it? Who better to tell your secrets to than a complete stranger?" 

  


"That's a bullshit philosophy."

  


"It doesn't seem like you have a better one. What are you doing here?" 

  


Dan lets his eyes go back to his journal, lets his hands mess with the edges slightly nervously. "That makes two times you've asked me tonight."

  


"Then that makes twice you've avoided answering." 

  


Dan ignores him. "What are _you_ doing here?"

  


Phil shrugs a little, bringing his legs up to rest on the floor as he falls to rest on his back. "Don't really know. I couldn't sleep, I guess. So, I walked."

  


"How come?"

  


"How come I walked, or how come I couldn't sleep?"

  


"How come you couldn't sleep," Dan specifies, finally closing the moleskine. 

  


"I don't really know that, either. But, isn't it kind of easy to speculate? No one healthy or happy is still awake at, what, 2, almost 3 in the morning? It's technically tomorrow."

  


Dan contemplates his words, has the thoughts roll around at the front of his mind that makes an action similar to the one of the tides on the coastline. "So you're not happy?"

  


"I never said that."

  


"You implied it."

  


"Right, well." Phil lets out a soft sigh on the last l, his voice trailing as a compliment to the mist that the tides leave behind. Dan wonders if they'd be the same as the ones in his mind.

  


Phil doesn't say anything afterwards and Dan finds that he's forcing himself to believe the lull is a hesitant break, an expected pause, no matter how much his mind wants him to feel the silence like the stilted spaces between the consonants and vowels on the tip of his pen when he can't think of the right way to articulate a feeling. There are things Dan thinks he wants to ask, but they've both contributed to the silence tonight.

  


"I couldn't really sleep either," Dan says. "I don't get it, really. I mean- it wasn't even anything special this time either. I'd normally be here writing when I have something on my mind, but I literally have nothing, and I feel just a little numb right now, and the moment the Sun goes down I suddenly have all the energy in the world and no inspiration and- is that weird?" 

  


"No? I- uh- I get the energy thing. It happens to me too, sometimes," Phil replies, though his voice is surprised and he thinks it's because he didn't actually expect Dan to ever answer, and much less in a ramble where neither can tell two of his syllables apart. Dan inexplicably feels like he's wilting a little, but then Phil turns his head to where the metal on the floor of the structure stings his face with the chill of the night, and against the contrast of the light on his cheekbone and the dark from the mulch below, Dan realizes he still hasn't properly seen Phil's eyes. 

  


"So you're a writer then?" Phil asks, but the look on his face says he wants to say something so completely different that Dan almost doesn't answer.

  


"Yeah."

  


"You wanna know something?"

  


"What?"

  


"You don't talk much for a writer."

  


"Oh, fuck off."

  


-

_(TWO: you get this look when you're concentrating that reminds me of that time where it's still evening and it's clear out but you can already see the moon? your eyes are so very clear and you close in on yourself and you're so deathly beautiful i don't know if i'd like to know what you're like when you let go)_

2:32 AM

  


The next time Dan sees Phil, the novelty has yet to wear off and Dan finds himself this time on the swing set. He can't adjust his body to where he's holding on right without dropping his things from his lap, and he feels like his hands are starting to turn into the rust from the chains where he's gripping so deathly hard.

  


Dan's about to give up on the swings and move elsewhere, when he hears the silence break under the telltale creak of someone sitting in the swing next to him. His head turns in time with the skip of his heart, but he forces himself to calm down as he sees the eyes staring back at him.

  


"It's you again."

  


"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Hasn't anyone ever shown you how to use a swing?"

  


Dan looks down at himself and scowls. His legs are still flailing a little in trying to keep his balance, and the whole of his arms are wrapped around each chain on either side in a strangled hug. He, in short, looks ridiculous.

  


Dan chooses not to answer. "Why are you here again?"

  


Phil looks away from Dan and shrugs his shoulders, letting his feet give him the push he needs to swing leisurely. "No reason."

  


Dan furrows his eyebrows and finds his fist is clenching reflexively. "Then, in that case, I'd like you to leave if it's all the same to you."

  


Phil looks surprised at this. "What? Why?"

  


"No reason."

  


"Aw, no, Dan-"

  


"Why are you here?"

  


"I just wanted to be here, okay? What, suddenly this is your park?" Phil asks, jaw setting in a manner that reminds Dan of cracks on the concrete sidewalks he wishes he didn't know better than he does himself. 

  


"I like being alone-"

  


"What if I thought I might see you again?"

  


Dan stops short, his limbs short circuiting and letting him wobble dangerously on the swing seat. "What?"

  


"No, wait-"

  


"No, no. You can't just say shit like that and take it back. What'd you mean?"

  


Phil almost looks nervous. "What's it look like I meant?"

  


"But did you mean it?" Dan asks, pressing himself to the seat in an act of nervousness and leaning as forward as he can all the same. He wishes he knew what he was doing, why he's asking- why he cares.

  


Phil contemplates Dan, features finally relaxing until they slowly slide into a small smile that confuses Dan even more than he already is. He shakes his head, and pushes all his weight onto his legs to start swinging again. Dan doesn't know when he stopped moving in the first place. 

  


"You're a very strange person, Dan," Phil calls more than says over the wind of his movement. 

  


(Dan isn't sure if that was a yes or a no.)

  


Instead of asking, Dan lets his journal drop, and pushes himself with all the force he can muster at 2 AM. It doesn't take long for him to match Phil's pace, and they swing in silence, chains creaking in a metronome beat that matched the ringing in Dan's ears that's somehow stopped. 

  


(When the shadows are slowly becoming less, and Dan can see the dew on the grass over the broken streetlights, Dan can't help but notice that at some point, he and Phil had switched into an alternating beat that brings to Dan's mind the fact that quantum physics says no two things can ever touch.)

  


-

To: Dan

2:34 AM: are u ok?

To: Phil

3:15 AM: yeah why?

To: Dan

3:16 AM: just checking

  


-

11:23 PM

  


(Dan hasn't gone to the park in three days, maybe more. In that time, his mind hasn't shut up, he's broken more plates than he logically has, and he wonders if maybe there's more to life than broken phrases over spilt coffee in an attempt to just make it.

  


Coincidentally, he hasn't written a word since.)

  


-

_(THREE: Who am I to describe you? Your eyes are like the richest mocha I appreciate the most on a winter day - the freckles on the side of your face make a sad face when you smile and your laugh is vibrant and you're soft in general and your lips are a chapped pale that's a little unhealthy and you're absolutely breathtakingly radiant and sometimes I think I'm a little jealous of the way your writing takes up more of your attention than I do and sometimes all I can think of is the way I'd like to be a notebook for you)_

4:46 PM

  


"I thought your hair would be darker than this."

  


Dan looks up, surprised, and between seeing the jet-black of Phil's hair and the paleness of his complexion, all Dan really registers is that it's the first time he's properly seen Phil's eyes, (and in the moment Dan realizes he was wrong, and that his eyes are not a blue that's the colour kindergarteners say the sky should be, but instead the fade of a favorite pair of jeans from being washed too many times, or not at all, and it throws Dan off so.)

  


"Your eyes are weird." 

  


"Thanks." Phil sits next to him on the grass, letting his legs stretch out as far as they can and Dan suddenly feels his legs are trapped in their cross-legged position where a few seconds ago they were completely comfortable. 

  


"You know, after a few days, I started thinking you might not be coming back," Phil says.

  


Dan looks up, surprised. "Why?"

  


"It's weird, isn't it?" Phil looks up at the Sun, holding his hand above his eyes even though the tree Dan's sitting under is enough shade for the entirety of his legs. Now, his whole face is covered in different shades of a single shadow, and Dan feels a little bit more comfortable with the whole situation, and considerably less bothered by the way Phil didn't answer his question.

  


"It's weird, seeing you during the daytime."

  


"I thought I was the only one who thought that," Phil says, and he turns his head to share a smile with Dan before Dan catches himself and turns his attention back to his journal. Knowing Phil will understand, he picks up his pen from where it rolled off a few minutes earlier, and tries to pick up from where he left off. 

  


(It doesn't take long for him to realise he can't.)

  


-

_(FOUR: i don't get your need to match socks or to make sure your pens are in order before you leave the house or your need to make sure all the cabinets are closed even if you're going to get something from it later because then you see your other rooms and you've strewn your clothes wherever you can fit them and you never tie your laces and your mirror is dirty and you contradict yourself in such an interesting way and wow you're just really interesting to me)_

1:12 PM

  


Dan doesn't know why he decided to wear a sweater. The sky is cloudy but the sun is peeking out from the edges of the clouds and overall the day is humid, sticky air reminding Dan of spilt lemonade and half-chewed bubblegum that only keeps its flavor for a minute or so and the insistence on wearing all black during summer even though it's 90 degrees outside. 

  


Phil doesn't seem to feel it, and if he does, he hasn't shown it. He lies with his back on the grass and legs propped up against the same tree Dan's sitting against. He's fiddling with a small notepad of his own that Dan can't see the contents of, but the spiral binding and the way Phil's eyes remind him of an interstate sign makes him imagine of doodles that would be filled in with an unnecessary amount of copics and polished with the most refined of drawing tools he doesn't actually need.

  


If they don't meet during the night, they know to find each other during the day, in the grass a few hundred feet from the playground because of the unspoken agreement that the extra sounds the crickets make to fill the silence are to be kept to the spaces between sundown and sunrise. Dan doesn't know when they got better at this silent thing than when they first met, but it saves Dan the trouble of having to form words to express the thoughts that even he isn’t sure he understands.

  


Everytime he's with Phil, Dan realises he knows a lot less than it seems. Dan doesn't know when the occasional nighttime meetings shifted into afternoon meetups in the park, doesn't know when he started welcoming and expecting Phil's presence instead of disregarding him like he so often does, nor does he know when Phil's smile started reminding him of the romantic poetry he read sometime during english class with more than an air of unimportance. 

  


(Dan doesn't like changes in his routine, but like this he thinks he could come to admit they're not as bad as he makes them out to be.)

  


-

_(FIVE: when did you decide you're not worth the world and more?)_

12:30 PM

  


Phil treats them both to ice cream that day. They find themselves at Dairy Queen and order one of everything on the menu in a show of carelessness they can't be bothered to think through. Dan slides into the seat opposite Phil in the booth he's picked, a space entirely too small for their spindly legs that they end up with their limbs somewhat tangled against each others and their bodies a bit rigid in keeping to their own sides, though neither of them mind, not really. 

  


The fries arrive first, and they waste no time before eating them. They don't speak, and Dan finds it a little strange to be sitting opposite someone without needing his journal as a shield or something to do. Lately, Dan's found it's a little harder to write, and what he does write is changing, somehow, from what he knows to be his style. His words still flow in a manner he knows, but there's something off about his rhythm that he has yet to put a name to, or decide if he likes it or not.

  


(Dan sets it aside like most things he has to contemplate and decides this is more straightforward than most things he's known to date, anyways.)

  


Phil gives Dan another one of his smiles, a more common thing now, and Dan finds his hand clenching around the pen that's not there for another reason entirely, and it ultimately scares him a bit less than he'd like it to. Dan eats another fry as the ice creams begin to pile up on the side of their table.

  


Phil takes initiative to start conversation between the two, though Dan finds himself focused more on the cracks and lifts in his voice that paint a chipped porcelain cup in Dan's mind, instead of what Phil's actually saying. He manages to thread together what little he knows Phil's said, and returns broken answers if Phil's expression is anything to go by, but they carry a bit of small talk too light and too ridiculous for what Dan knows they've gotten to speaking before.

  


"Dan? Are you okay?" Phil asks, moving to wave his fingers in front of Dan's face in a show of refocusing Dan's eyes. Dan blinks, moving back from where he was sliding on his elbows, and fixes his posture with a shake of his head. "Sorry?"

  


Phil chuckles. "Are you okay? You seem a little spaced out."

  


Dan feels his face start to heat, so he rushes to grab a drink - any drink - and down it all in a single gulp. "Yeah, sorry. I- yeah."

  


Phil rolls his eyes and gestures towards the food. "I know I'm dreadfully entertaining, but at least eat your food. I hope you didn't make us pay to waste all this."

  


Dan shakes his head. "I'm not really hungry."

  


"No, no, right, you're going to eat this, and you are going to eat this. I will feed it to you. I'm not even kidding," Phil says, so audibly affronted that Dan snorts and nibbles on a fry slowly. 

  


"Better?"

  


Phil grabs a mini Blizzard and from the other side of the table, pushes the spoon into Dan's mouth. "Eat! You haven't eaten all day. Plus, I really can't eat all of this myself."

  


Dan swallows and lets his mouth hang open for Phil to keep shoveling ice cream and whipped cream in. Dan's midway through a cup when he sees a dark red lump on the spoon and stops.

  


"What is that?"

  


Phil looks down at the spoon. "What is what? Oh, that? A cherry. Open wide-"

  


"No, no, no. That's fucking disgusting. You eat the stupid cherry. I don't like cherries," Dan says, wiping his mouth even though the cherry hadn't entered his mouth yet.

  


"You've eaten like two already!" Phil protests, but takes the cherry into his own mouth and holds it between his teeth. Dan's heart does a strange little fluttery thing to go along with it. 

  


"Have I really? Well, I don't like them," Dan says, voice trailing as he tries to remember when he might've eaten a cherry then since the last time in 7th grade, maybe 5th grade. 

  


"Dan, you've literally been eating black cherry ice cream this whole time?"

  


Dan stops short as Phil brings the spoon from his mouth to Dan's own, and pulls back for the second time. He opens his mouth to presumably protest, but Phil shoves the spoon in instead and Dan has no choice but to stomach the taste that he horrifyingly identifies as something his taste buds have known for the past half hour. His brows furrow and he frowns, confused and even more so as Phil's hand finds his own over the table. 

  


Phil brings his hand to Dan's face, hand cradling the soft edges and automatically softening the creases between Dan's eyes and the corners of his lips as he looks up at Phil. "I'll finish it for you?"

  


Dan doesn't even know what it is they're talking about, can't register anything other than the sudden physical proximity between the two and the way Phil's hand doesn't feel like soft fabric against his face: his hands are slightly clammy yet dry at the same time, and Dan thinks of the way flowers grow out the cracks in the concrete and wonders that if physics allowed for it, what kind of flowers Phil would be sporting on the edges of his hands. 

  


"Uh- yeah," Dan says lamely, and as Phil pulls back he impulsively grabs the cup instead and with a grimace Dan partially wishes weren't there, begins eating the ice cream. 

  


Dan swallows and fixes Phil with an exaggerated half-smile. "Well, it's not horrible."

  


Phil looks inexplicably happy, and settles back into his seat with a chicken basket and one of the waffle cones that's gone slightly soggy and drippy from sitting at room temperature. Dan leans back in his own seat as well, taking the spoon between his teeth and pulling a pair of sandwiches close to him.

  


Cherry isn't as bad as Dan remembered, and certainly not with a smile like that to go along with it.

  


-

_(SIX: You're tragic and it's okay to be afraid. I'm scared of you and what you could do to me but some things are worth a little pain.)_

4:32 PM

  


Phil lets himself slide a little bit more in the chair he's not properly sitting in, head hanging off the end where his legs should be and he throws his book - a mess of words on paper he's not actually reading (or even attempting to) - haphazardly to the side. "Dan?"

  


"Hm?"

  


"Not to be rude or anything? This is really nice and your house is actually really nice, but-"

  


"You're bored."

  


"I'm bored."

  


Dan looks up from his mess on the floor and gives Phil an apologetic little smile. "Sorry. Want to come see what I'm working on?"

  


Phil nods interestedly and slinks out of the chair, sliding down until he's sitting next to Dan on the hardwood flooring. Dan pushes paper shreddings and crumpled paper to the side, making room for the both of them as Phil gets entirely too close and not close enough. 

  


"Oh. Am I allowed to see this?" Phil asks, waving to where Dan's journal lays open, two thin blank pages pinned apart under all magazine clippings and other miscellaneous paper scraps Dan's amassed over the hour. 

  


The question takes Dan so off-guard he nearly gets defensive, eyes flickering up to Phil's face in search of the insincerity he thinks should be there but wouldn't because it's Phil, and Dan almost feels guilty for losing himself for a second when he sees the way Phil's trying ever so hard to not to analyze everything on the floor besides them. 

  


"Um, yeah. You're fine. Look before I change my mind," Dan says, rather proud of the way his voice doesn't shake as much as he thinks it should be for what he's doing. The spread he's imagining at the moment is nowhere as personal as his writing before, but it's still something in his journal and therefore something from the core of his very being. 

  


Phil drinks up the sight in such a way that makes Dan feel interesting and meaningful, even though he knows Phil doesn't exactly know what it is he's supposed to be looking at, what it is he's supposed to say or what everything will come out to in the end. 

  


"You should write."

  


Phil startles at this. "What?"

  


Dan leans over the mess he's made and pulls his moleskine from under it into his lap, taking two pens with him and pushing one into Phil's hand. "You should write."

  


"Where? In your notebook? What am I supposed to write?"

  


Dan cocks his head a little and eyes Phil slightly blankly. "Whatever you want to. You can write about your day, a thought that crossed your mind, a story - literally anything."

  


Phil nods slowly, eyes slightly wide at the prospect of sharing space in something he knows is so deeply personal to Dan, but grips the pen like a lifeline and leans forward with a set look on his face. Dan starts the page with dating it in a colour different than his ballpoint pen, and passes the notebook to Phil, prompting him to write something - anything - as he returns his attention to rifling through his clippings. He's not sure what he's looking for, and everything he has is just too _dull_.

  


Dan's playlist loops around for the third time as Phil's pen makes scratching noises to fill the spaces between one song and the next. Dan looks over to Phil and tries not to acknowledge the way he feels his breath catch - it's past 5 and the slowly setting Sun casts an ethereal glow around Phil in such a way Dan's not sure if this is the boy he met in the soft of the moonlight or an actual angel come to bring something new to Dan's life. His skin looks a bit more real under the yellow of the light, instead of a pale that reminds Dan of poison apples and 1937 Disney films, and Dan really doesn't want to feel the way his veins shift under his skin like the loops in his handwriting if that same light were to hit Phil's eyes.

  


Phil stretches his arms out and Dan fails to look away in time before Phil meets his eyes. Dan offers him a soft, sheepish smile, and Phil gives him a grin of his own, and Dan suddenly feels the need to look away, to do anything other than be faced with whatever it is Phil is and radiates. 

  


"I think I'm done? I'm not exactly much of a writer, you know," Phil says, and Dan takes his hands impulsively, turning them to the sides so he can see the edges: they're stained with ink, and Dan nods almost approvingly. 

  


"No, you know you've written when the sides of your hands go purple under the ink. You can wash up if you like." Phil looks at his hands in surprise, as if he weren't expecting there to be anything there, but simply fixes his hair and leaves his hands in his lap. 

  


"No, it's...nice? Different. You can look at what I wrote, you know. But, later." Dan nods, closing the notebook and stacking all his magazines onto the lid of the box from where they came from. He sits back again and lets his head lie against the bottom of the chair, and tries not to pull away when Phil lets his head lie on Dan's left shoulder as well. 

  


Phil picks up a paperclipped something from besides him and thumbs through the cuttings half-heartedly, though the flipping motion catches Dan's eye. He lets his gaze slide over, recognizing the stack as one of the ones he formed that same evening, though it makes his train of thought stop short as he takes in a common theme around it.

  


Phil sets the collection aside and takes Dan's hand unnecessarily, but Dan squeezes his own around Phil's and lets his eyes close under the receding sunlight in the living room.

  


(At the back of his mind, he wonders how many spreads he's actually planned in his journal that have started at 3AM with pale and finished at 6PM with blue.)

  


-

_(SEVEN: you're different and interesting and you're a breath of fresh air and a first glass of water after a run and the most complex of metaphors i can't think of and lovely in every sense of the word.)_

7:03 PM

  


Dan feels strangely empty the days Phil doesn't visit. He knows it's unreasonable, considering they're both adults and Phil probably does have a busy social life when not around him, but it's strange nonetheless.

  


Dan opens his journal, flipping to the last binder-clipped page and tries not to roll his eyes at the moment when he presses the pen to the page and nothing worth writing comes to his mind. 

  


Dan finds it strange and ironic that when he wants to write, he really can't, can't force the metaphors and flowery language he so craves out of his fingers out onto the spaces on the page and he finds it frustrates him to no end. On any other day, he'd walk, but he for some reason doesn't feel like pacing and the white of his walls really isn't contributing to silence the white noise in his mind and the ringing in his ears he hasn't heard in the longest of time.

  


Sometimes (or mostly in times like these), Dan wishes he were good at something else, something with a formula he could pick up at any time and adjust to something else when he wants something new to do, something different to mess with, yet routinely all the same. Writing is freedom, writing is liberation in the smell of ink on uniform lines that look like they should be constricting and merciless in the spaces between the scrawl and the print but truthfully, they're the kindest thing Dan knows. 

  


He decides instead to flip through the moleskine, thinking and maybe hoping a loose end of an idea will shout at him from the silence on the page for him to contemplate and maybe elaborate on in a way to finally finish up his journal. Hardcover moleskines aren’t that thin, but for some reason, Dan's on his last two blank pages facing each other already, and he really just needs to fill them before he can move on to something else.

  


Dan tries not to read his previous writing - not because of resentment towards his previous writing, or his past in general, but mostly because of the negativity laced between the vowels on the page that he doesn't want to carry onto the end. He skims every other journal entry, lips gradually forming a soft frown as he sees a theme between his writings up to the point where Phil's rests untouched since the day he wrote. Dan hasn't worked himself up enough to read it, and as he contemplates skipping it for what might be the fourth time and opening it for the ninth, the curiosity he hasn't been able to settle rises less like steam from an open pot, and more like the boiling water below it.

  


Dan removes the paper clip holding the two pages together and spreads them apart with steady hands he's proud of. Dan blinks, trying not to focus yet on the words and instead on the aesthetic of the spread itself, though he's admittedly confused - for all the time Phil spent writing that day, there really isn't all that much on the pages.

  


Dan lets himself focus on the area around the first little paragraph from eight, a little alien drawing with limbs much too unproportional besides the first word. His eyes widen as he takes in every word and he feels like he might just throw up with the way his heart rebels against his ribcage and his hands might as well be doused in gasoline for the way he feels and he's not one to call himself ignorant but _oh_ how he is so agonizingly _ignorant_. 

  


_No wonder, no wonder, no wonder._ He rolls out of his bed and pulls on the first pair of shoes he can find over mismatched socks that would normally bother him but currently just don't hold that level of importance anymore. Dan pulls his jacket from the back of his chair even though he knows it's summer and he doesn't need it, and stumbles over his untied laces with his phone in his hand as he half-runs out his front door and onto the street only to stop short in such a broken movement, he hears the air snap around him. He feels a little ridiculous as he looks down at the phone in his hand and decides not for the first time that technology is truly mankind's best gift to itself. 

  


He dial's Phil's number and looks up at the streetlight besides him as the ringing drones on, and he's in such a numbingly shocked state of mind he can't even tell apart the ringing coming down the street from the one in his ears. 

  


"Dan?"

  


Dan spins so fast his hair flips a little, and he feels like a some sort of caged animal though he knows he's the one who called Phil in the first place. Phil looks like he's trying to take in all the emotions on Dan's face, but then gives up in the process, tentatively stepping forward with his hands out ever so slightly in an easing manner. "Dan? Are you okay?"

  


Dan swallows. "I- Yeah. Did you know I'm like the worst idea you've ever had?"

  


Phil blinks. "I'm sorry?"

  


"You- Why me? Not me. Anyone but me. I'm no good for this. I had a cactus die once because I forgot to water it. I forget birthdays."

  


Phil blanches slightly and something in his eyes turns urgent. "You finally read it."

  


"I break my dinnerware every week. I never tidy. I'm self-absorbed and I spend most of my time in my room. I forget to eat dinner sometimes, too."

  


Phil shakes his head. "I know this already."

  


"I ignore people. I can't take care of myself."

  


"Dan."

  


"I drink 20 cups of caffeine a day and I don't have a normal sleep schedule. I waste all my money on journals and pens. I push people away and I'm needy at the same time."

  


"So?"

  


Dan stops. "So? What do you mean, _so_? So, I'm not a good person! So, you deserve better. So, this is _stupid_ , and you need to let it go," he says, waving his hands in a frustrated manner. He wonders how absolutely stupid Phil must be to not see every single flaw in the nicest draft of the concept like a splash of black paint against a completely white wall.

  


Phil's face is blank under what's left of daylight, and he holds Dan's gaze with such an intensity Dan has to force himself to not look away. 

  


"Do you want me to let it go?" Phil's voice is quiet, and it makes Dan's heart clench and his throat constrict in a way he's really gotten too familiar with recently.

  


"No! But-"

  


"Then I won't." Phil breaks their stare to look up at the rising moon, and slides his eyes to the side to meet Dan's again. "Why do you have to worry so much?" He stretches his arm out and holds his hand out, and he's closer than he was at the beginning and Dan really doesn't know if that's from the past minutes or the past weeks. 

  


Dan lets Phil take his hand slowly, but instead of clasping it like they normally would, Phil laces their fingers together and holds their hands just below their faces. "You deserve so, so much more than whatever it is you think you do."

  


Dan drops his gaze and tries everything under the Sun to not run back into his house. "You'll get bored."

  


"Dan."

  


Dan flinches when he looks up at Phil's gaze: it's clear, and determined, and strong and willing and sure and everything Dan thinks he could never be. 

  


"We can take our time. We can take as long as you need to. I wouldn't force you into anything, but I also need to know this is something you want, you know?"

  


(Dan both fears and loves the fact Phil can see through him like this.)

  


Dan feels his hand shaking in Phil's grasp. Dan doesn't understand the way Phil makes him feel. It's not a specific feeling, but more of feeling itself. It's the way Phil's smile reminds him of the poetry he read sometime during school, the way Phil's warmth reminds him of cheesy novel plots he once thought exaggerated the concept of romance, and it's the way Phil makes Dan feel like the spaces between his fingers shouldn't actually be empty. This is fear, this is the unknown at its finest. Dan knows their relationship now is messy and full of flaws and not as straightforward as it seemed, but it's honest and real and Dan wonders what it'd be like to know no limits.

  


"You don't know what you're doing," Dan says, getting closer to Phil without knowing if they're pulling each other or not. 

  


"You're all I know."

  


"You might hate it. You might hate me."

  


"Do you think the penguins would take me in if I needed a place to go?" Phil asks, eyes bright and confused and full of so much hope. 

  


"I'm going to forget our anniversary. You need a stuff drawer in my house and your things will stay in the stuff drawer."

  


"Will you take me out to dinner sometimes?"

  


"I hope Pizza Hut counts as dinner."

  


Phil lets himself break into a grin that makes Dan's heart race and pulls Dan up against his chest, wrapping his other arm around Dan's waist. "I'll have whatever you're having."

  


"I'm really fucking afraid," Dan says with a smile of his own, and as Phil sets his gaze on Dan's lips, Dan feels like he's on a rollercoaster he doesn't want to get off. 

  


"Yeah, me too," Phil says, meeting and holding Dan's eyes for a second before closes the gap between them so slowly that it's too much for Dan, and not enough at the same time. Dan doesn't know what to do with his hands as he opens his lips against the softness of Phil's own, and he can't help but let out a soft gasp as Phil pulls Dan so impossibly close to himself. His heart is racing a million miles an hour, but all he can think about, all he feels, is Phil.

  


Phil breaks away slowly and Dan thinks he should feel ridiculous, kissing ever so-impeccably-dressed Phil in his own mismatched socks and long t-shirt and disheveled hair, but he finds he can't care and settles for trying to formulate words that tie together the every strand of his loose thoughts. "Oh."

  


Phil's slightly dazed look resembles everything Dan knows is painted over his face, and he leans forward to press his forehead against Phil's. He's scared beyond belief, considering this as his future. Phil is everything he wants and nothing he thinks he deserves, but as they rest against each other Dan thinks the fear he's feeling is nothing compared to what Phil is.

  


_Some things are worth a little pain._

  


Dan smiles.

  


-

_(EIGHT: it's the thrill of the chase that created the ride)_

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](starkoushi.tumblr.com) (or [here](nikehowell.tumblr.com) for future fic :'))


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